


Got it Bad

by InsidetheLocket



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-23 15:02:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsidetheLocket/pseuds/InsidetheLocket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s Stiles’ senior year and he still hasn’t gotten a lay. And he can’t help but wonder if he could get one from his new English teacher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Update/Author notes

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher."  
> Happy birthday, Jeremiah!

Hello, all!

It's been a long time, I know. I won't make excuses, but I would like to thank all of you for your patience and understanding - if you're still tracking this story, of course!

I wanted to give you all an update to say that I'll be updating this story weekly again - but in the meantime I'll be editing what I've already created. So, if you're willing to stick with me, I'd like to ask your permission to retcon my work. I want to do it right this time, and I've got just the plan to do it!

Yours, truly,  
Sam


	2. Introduction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all!  
> I'm going to be replacing the earlier chapters with newly edited versions. You may not notice all of the changes at first, but in the next few installments you're definitely going to see a divergence. I hope you enjoy!  
> I'll try to get through the stuff you've already seen quickly (maybe with more than one chapter a week?). But I'll go ahead and promise that you'll always get at least one every Sunday.  
> Much love and many thanks,  
> Sam

His steps felt heavy, uncushioned by his flat-footed shoes beating on the linoleum floor. Adjusting the straps on his backpack, he looked for someone - anyone - he knew.

“Oh, come on.” 

It wasn’t like anyone skipped the first day of school. His fingers twitched, tapping a rhythm into the useless buckles dangling by his chest. He wondered if anyone actually clipped them together, his eyes darting around for confirmation. Pressing his lips together, Stiles stifled a sigh. He’d be looking at chest buckles all day now that it was in his head.

This is why you’re still a virgin, he thought.

Lydia still wasn’t interested, a few potential girlfriends had died, and even though he had come out to his friends - some of whom used the word “duh” - the pickings were invariably slim. 

This year - like every year, he thought cynically - was going to be different.

“Oh, thank god,” he muttered. “Scott!”

“Hey!” Scott’s face lit up as Stiles walked more purposefully toward him. They hugged like they hadn’t seen each other nearly every day the previous summer.

Stiles held his friend at arm’s length, patting his shoulder and returning his hands to the buckles at his chest. Scott’s weren’t clipped either.

“Have you seen Allison?”

“No, but I’m sure she’s here. Did you text her?”

“No?”

“I swear, I’m carrying your half of the relationship.”

Scott laughed, pulling out his phone to take his friend’s advice. “Whatever.”

They stopped for a moment. Stiles tried to casually lean against a locker.

“Full moon this weekend.” he commented, like he was talking about the weather. 

Stiles squinted. He was talking about the weather.

“I know.”

“Feeling okay?”

“If you mean like ‘not-super-murdery,’ then yeah.”

“Ah, okay. That’s good.”

They swirled quietly with the mass of bleary-eyed students wandering through the halls, watching as individuals drifted toward clusters of their friends.

“Seriously how does it feel?” Stiles pressed.

Scott sighed, thinking.

“Like I drank too much coffee. Like,  _ way  _ too much coffee.”

Stiles let out a breathy laugh, “You want some Adderall?”

“Think it’ll help?” Scott asked, starting again down the hallway.

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Kidding, Scott.” He moved to catch up, shaking his head, “The last thing we need is a werewolf with ADHD symptoms.”

Scott flinched, protectively covering his ears as the bell warbled out its too-familiar tone. Stiles jumped with a reaction time a solid half-second slower.

“So it begins.”

“Hey,” Scott smiled, patting Stiles’ shoulder. “Senior year. We’re almost out of here.”

***

Physics, Statistics, and European History went by smoothly enough, but if Stiles had to participate in another “class bonding activity,” he might stab himself with an eraser. He probably looked like a marathon-mom, the way he power-walked to the cafeteria.

Heading toward the usual table, he began to dread that he would have to teach himself Stats for the year. His teacher seemed not to know much about the subject - or, more likely, didn’t really care.

Spreading his things over the table, Stiles began saving seats for his friends. He had gotten lucky - Stiles, Allison and Isaac all had the same lunch period with him.

“Is anyone sitting here?”

Stiles jumped, looking toward the intruder. The face, he recognized, but no name came to mind with it.

Looking around for his friends - who, he thought, were currently in the process of betraying him by leaving him to fend for himself in the cafeteria - he found no savior.

Movement in the hall beyond the cafeteria windows caught his eye. Dark hair and a strong jaw leading to broad shoulders and a slim waist.

“Hello?”

Snapping back to the intruder, Stiles stared for a moment, scrambling.

“Do you buckle your chest straps?” He blurted.

“Excuse me?”

“You know, never mind. Just go,” he shooed him away. “Over there.”

The boy rolled his eyes and turned away to find another free table.

Curious, Stiles looked back to the window. Whatever demigod was gracing the halls of Beacon Hills, he was new. And gone.

Disappointedly he slumped onto the stool and started poking at his lunch, not noticing Scott sneaking up behind him.

“Why don’t you ask her out?” His friend asked, draping himself over Stiles’ shoulders.

He stopped flicking his fork, which he had stuck into the spheroid blob the lunch lady claimed was spaghetti. His gaze shifted a little to focus on the indicated girl. He had been staring in her general direction.

“She’s a freshman, Scott.”

“Oh,” he mumbled, slipping into the seat next to his friend. Allison patted him on the head, taking the seat across from him as Isaac blocked Stiles’ gaze.

Isaac smiled. “It might be a little creepy now, but it’s not like the age difference is going to matter. In a couple of years, anyway,” he trailed off.

Stiles rolled his eyes. “I don’t have a couple of years; virgins are still a pretty hot commodity.”

Scott nodded thoughtfully, scoping the cafeteria again.

“How about him?”

“Also a freshman.”

“How can you tell?” His voice raised an octave in frustration.

Looking to the boy in question, Allison deadpanned. “How can you not?”

Scott examined the subjects of their conversation. One was giggling in the middle of a small clot of girls talking loudly enough to be heard by all. The other was trying too hard to look like he couldn’t be bothered. Both attractive, but both immature.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Scott mumbled dejectedly.

“Don’t worry about it, Stiles,” Allison reassured, rubbing Scott’s arm. “You’ll find someone.”

Isaac mustered up his best Dracula impression: “Or someone will find you,” he said, drawing his imaginary cape around his face.

Stiles punched smacked away Isaac’s now wiggling fingers, trying not to smile. 

The conversation slipped effortlessly to other topics - before he had time to complain that the lunch period felt shorter than ever, he was whisked away by the tide of students answering the bell.

Computer Science, he decided, looked much more promising than he expected. Human Geography, though, he was unsure of. Surely he could make it interesting for himself, and despite coming off as a little insipid, the teacher seemed to know what she was doing.

Sixth period: English; a decent class to round things off, especially since he could take the seat behind Scott.

“What do you think the teacher’s going to look like this year?” Lydia mused.

At the sound of her voice, Stiles looked toward the group clustered at the front of the class, sitting on and in desks wherever they could fit. He had been wondering the same thing. 

Great minds. Or paranoid ones. 

Thanks to the population of superhumans in Beacon Hills, AP English IV could have been Defense Against the Dark Arts. With a new teacher every year - and sometimes two - Stiles could only pray for someone relatively sane.

One of them, whom Stiles recognized as David Something From Psych Last Year, grinned like he realized the meaning of a joke told long ago.

Stiles braced himself for the revelation about to pour from his historically idiotic mouth.

“My butt, man!”

Laughter drowned out his and Scott’s groans. 

David Something’s chest buckles were clipped tightly together over a “Cool Story, Bro” tee shirt. 

Unimpressed, Lydia pursed her lips, flipping her hair, and attention, to the other side of the room.

Deciding to take a pair of scissors to his backpack that night, Stiles leaned forward to whisper in Scott’s ear.

“Just - why?”

Scott suppressed a chuckle, turning slightly, “He’ll probably drop before the week is out.”

The bell rang, prompting the straggling students to take their seats, a couple dramatically running into the room and scrambling behind desks before the echo died in the hall.

Motionless and breathless, the class watched the doorknob, each one waiting to meet the “D. Hale” advertised by their schedules.

Someone sang the Jeopardy tune. Titters and quiet conversations struck up again, the air still thick with anticipation.

Stiles leaned forward again.

“What teacher is late for the first day of school?”

Lydia piped up, “Maybe she wants a dramatic entrance.”

“What makes you think he’s a she?” Stiles inquired.

“Statistically, most English teachers are women,” she shot back. “I figured everyone knew that.”

Stiles frowned and slumped back in his chair, folding his arms. Deciding otherwise, he ran his hands through his hair. He stopped and played with a corner of his notebook, then leaned forward again to put his elbows on the desk to tap his thumbs on the edge. His foot impatiently bobbed up and down. He took his pen and clicked it repeatedly, resting his cheek onto the heel of his palm.

“Jesus, Stiles,” someone hissed.

He stopped mid-click, licking his lips and wincing as it clicked again when he put it on the desk.

“Sorry.”

Tilting his head down and shielding himself from the stares with a hand on his brow, he quietly adjusted the things on his desk so that their edges were parallel. He struggled with a pencil that insisted on rolling down the ostensibly flat surface. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Scott twitch slightly, listening. Barely meeting his eyes, they nodded to each other almost imperceptibly as the door handle turned.

The entire class went deadly silent. Twenty-nine pairs of eyes focused on the opening door.

“Oh my God.” Stiles whispered, punctuating each word with his mouth agape.

He was fucking beautiful.

And he did not look happy.

Too busy memorizing his features, the reaction of the rest of the class was now irrelevant. Close cropped, inky hair haloed a forehead drawn together in agitation. Stubble lining his strong jaw detracted from his otherwise clean look, but not from his appearance. His nose and cheekbones were sharp, leading to a stern mouth that made Stiles’ lips tingle with speculation. He was young.

Mr. Hale’s eyes were some light color. Green? Blue? He turned before anyone could tell.

Realizing his mouth hadn’t closed, Stiles clamped his mouth shut with such force that his teeth clacked together. His legs crossed, fingers lacing as he took note of corded muscles under a button-down that, because of them, appeared almost too small. Though a little disappointed, Stiles was relieved that the teacher stepped behind the podium before he could see his legs. Based on his height, he knew they were around eight miles long.

His mind raced when it seemed that Mr. Hale’s gliding gaze halted a bit longer on him and Scott.

He unlaced his fingers, opening his notebook to a page close to the back cover, and began to scratch the outpour of potential things Mr. Hale might be onto the lines. It was exactly what he needed to calm himself.

“You guys look like you were up to something devious,” He stated calmly.

Stiles looked up as a nervous giggle rippled through the classroom. A disarming smile melted the tension in a fraction of the time it took to build. Through a collective lung came a noiseless sigh of relief.

“Siren?” was written under the crossed out words “Regular English teacher” just before Stiles closed the notebook. 

Mr. Hale began to make rounds between the desks. As he came to Stiles’ he tapped twice on the surface, causing the precariously balanced pencil to roll off and onto the floor. He almost didn’t notice, too busy trying to decipher whether that was Morse code for the letter “I,” or possibly the Roman numeral one, or even Braille - what was two dots in Braille?

“Uh. Sorry.” Stiles muttered, scrambling to pick it back up.

“I’ve got it.” 

Mr. Hale got there first, taking Stiles’ wrist in one hand and lifting the pencil into his palm. mechanically closed his fingers as the teacher straightened.

Blue. His eyes were blue.

Like it was nothing - like Stiles’ ears weren’t burning red - Mr. Hale continued pacing through the aisles.

When he was a reasonable distance away, Stiles found his page again and wrote “PLEASE” beside the crossed out words “Regular English teacher.”

“Tell me if I mispronounce your name, please - I’d prefer not to make anyone cringe every time I call on you.”

The laugh that reverberated through the classroom this time was almost completely relaxed.

“David Armano,” He said, not an ounce of a question in his tone.

“President,” sniggered David Something From Psych Last Year.

Mr. Hale’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

“In case you forgot what subject you wandered into, I’ll refresh your memory. Take your use of the English language seriously or get out. Now.”

As quickly as it dissipated, the students’ apprehension. The collective lung stuttered to a halt.

“Yes, sir,” David peeped.

Mr. Hale stared a moment longer into his soul, adding lowly, “This doesn’t bode well for you, Mr. Armano.”

A short “scritch” was the only noise as Stiles underlined “PLEASE” in his notebook.

“Jessica Aspen.”

“Here,” she squeaked, raising her hand timidly.

He looked up, placing the face with the name with a shockingly softer expression.

“Eric Bale.”

“Here.”

With each name the class seemed to become more comfortable again, and with each one he called he glanced up.

“Scott McCall.”

“Here, sir.”

Mr. Hale checked off Scott’s name, smirking at the crooked smile resting easily on his friend's face.

Even though he tried not to, Stiles rehearsed saying “here” over and over in his mind, hyper-aware of how many names were to be called before his.

“Stiles Sty-linski.”

“He-uh” he stammered. “It’s Stilinski. You just kind of say it all in one go. Stilinski.”

God, stupid,  _ stupid _ .

Mr. Hale looked up after making a note on the paper, smiling faintly.

“Sorry about that,” He paused, committing the name to memory. “Stilinski.”

“Ah, no, uh, problem.” Fuck,  _ speak _ , Stiles.

The moment Mr. Hale moved to the next name, Stiles put his head down.

Behind him, someone tapped his shoulder. 

“Can I have a sheet of paper?”

“It’s the first day of school, Danny, get your own.”

“Give me a piece of paper and I’ll pretend you’re not swooning.”

Stiles’ arm thrashed, violently ripping a sheet out of his notebook. Danny took it with a shit-eating grin. 

“Kidding, Sty-linski.”

Instead of returning to the podium, Mr. Hale sat nonchalantly atop his desk.

“Come, my friends,” He began with an air of recitation. Everyone straightened at the way the words began to flow in his voice.

“ ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in the old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are,

One equal-temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

There was a profound pause among the students as Mr. Hale allowed the poetry to sink in.

He took a breath, “Can anyone tell me what that’s from?”

Lydia and Stiles raised their hands in synchronization.

Looking between them an expression of satisfaction crossed his features.

“Lydia, right?” 

She nodded, beaming. 

“You tell me the title, and Stiles, you tell me the author.”

“Ulysses,” Lydia gushed, while Stiles said “Alfred Lord Tennyson.”

“I didn’t mean at the same time, but that works.” Mr. Hale said, turning to sit behind his desk. This elicited a chuckle from Scott and Danny, Lydia rolled her eyes at them while his back was turned, looking prim and proper the moment he faced the class again.

“Scott,” the teacher called. “What do you think all that means?”

Scott sat up. 

“That no matter how late or under what… circumstances… are against you, you can rise above it and keep trying?” The end of his sentence turned up in a question.

“Keep trying at what?” Mr. Hale asked.

“Life?”

“You should speak with more conviction, but yes, exactly.”

Scott slumped, letting his shoulders fall.

Mr. Hale looked over the rest of the class. “I’m not just throwing a few pretty words at you. I want you to know that weakness does not denote failure. I want you to know that, though you have hardly sought one world, it is never too late to seek a newer one. You are who you are, through everything that happens to you. As a communal spirit, striving, seeking and finding are things made possible. 

‘We are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature.’ ”

Stiles wanted to clap.

“In this room, I want no bullshit. We move as a pack, not in competition. I want you to carry the relationships built here-”

Stiles mind was gone from the room. He’d be damned if “pack” was coincidental. His hand twitched toward the notebook, but he stopped, noticing Mr. Hale watching the movement.

Mr. Hale’s sentence morphed, suddenly irritated.

“Armano. Put your phone away before I throw it out the window.”

Meekly, David obliged.

“Your first assignment is to bring me your favorite piece of writing. I don’t care what it is—a poem, a book, a short story, anything—just make it good. I’ll definitely be judging your character based off of it.”

A couple of people laughed lightly, but the rest stared - terrified.

“Joking.” Mr. Hale said, rubbing the back of his neck. “You guys need to relax. I won’t bite.”

Stiles both wished and feared that he would.

A disruption of the focus in the class signaled that the bell would soon ring. Though Mr. Hale looked a little disdainfully at the shuffling, he let it go.

Scott turned around as innocently as possible.

“Pack?” He mouthed.

“Bite?” Stiles returned, inching sideways to block Mr. Hale’s view of him.

“Isn’t he dreamy?” Danny interrupted. The two glared at him. The bell rang, drowning out whatever scathing comment bubbled up from Stiles.

Filing out with the rest of the class, Lydia made a comment about how Pavlovian the bell system was.

Stiles stood and fitted the straps of his backpack onto his shoulders. Scott let him pass and followed him toward the door, subconsciously making sure he would be the last to exit the room.

“Stilinski.” Mr. Hale called, not looking up from the paper in his hands.

Stiles froze, turning back toward the teacher’s desk, “Yeah?”

Scott stood awkwardly between them.

“You can go, Mr. McCall.”

Glancing between the two of them, concern bloomed over Scott’s face, but he shuffled past his friend and to the hallway. A pointed glimpse assured him that his friend would be right outside.

Scott shut the door on his way out.

After a beat, Mr. Hale spoke.

“You’re taking a zero period. On top of five other AP courses.”

He cleared his throat, “Well, I’m really just helping out at the library, but yeah, I guess I am.”

Mr. Hale raised an eyebrow.

“You’re either a very smart or incredibly stupid, you realize that?”

Stiles gawked.

“I guess no one told you senior year was supposed to be easy.” Mr. Hale continued.

“No one told me college tuition paid itself, either.”

Or that Mr. Hale was obscenely attractive up close.

Mr. Hale considered Stiles for a moment.

“I admire ambition, Stiles, but this seems almost unhealthy.”

“Look,” he started. “I can’t ask my dad to carry me through college. And I don’t want to be paying off loans my, entire life.”

He nodded, understanding. “I’m not going to go easy on you.”

“I’d be offended if you did.”

“Let me know if you need someone to talk to,” he said, waving Stiles out the door.

“Sure. Thanks.” His heart pounded as he turned on his heel.

Before he turned the doorknob, his teacher’s voice reeled him back, “Stiles.”

“Yeah?” he volleyed, spinning back and trying to keep his balance.

“What’s your real name?”

A corner of Stiles’ mouth twitched up. “What’s yours?”

“Derek.” He offered casually. “In class it’s Mr. Hale.

“It’s just Stiles, Derek.”

The teacher rolled his eyes, gathering his things from around his desk. Calling “Get home safely” as Stiles tried not to skip his way out of the classroom.

If not for Scott’s insistence that they talk about what Derek Hale was, Stiles wasn’t sure he would care.

That night, unceremoniously flumping into his bed, he couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’ve got it bad.”


	3. Coming To Grips

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's a day late, y'all. I got home a little later than usual last night.  
> Much love,  
> Sam

What did it matter that Stiles took advantage the fantasies floating through his mind when no one was around? That his “active imagination” let him picture himself slammed and ravaged against a blackboard? It wasn’t something he had to talk about.

“ScottI’mhotforourEnglishteacher.” He blurted in the library the next morning

“You’re  _ what _ ?” he wheeled around.

Stiles stopped shelving the book in his hand deliberately, his head rolling to one shoulder with a frown.

“You heard me.”

Scott’s mouth hung open - he had hoped he heard him wrong. 

“Do you-” a puff of breath deflated him a little. “Do you know how many levels of off-limits he is?”

Flapping his mouth open and shut like a suffocated fish, Stiles struggled with what to say.

“I got home after practice, I ate dinner, I did my homework, and then I beat off. Three times.”

“Man, I don’t want to hear about—”

“And I was in bed by ten,” Stiles cut him off.

Scott paused, mild shock peeking through his discomfort.

“Why did you go to bed so early?”

“One guess as to why I might have been tired.”

“Right.” 

Scott’s face warred between subtle awe and disgust.

“We don’t even know what he is.”

“What if he’s nothing? What if - hear me out - what if, for once in our lives we were dealing with a regular, completely sane, ridiculously hot English teacher? An English teacher with interesting vocabulary choices, but-”

The bell rang.

“Then there’s still the whole statutory thing!” Scott rasped, taking a few steps into Stiles’ personal space. “Your dad would lock both of you up.”

Stiles tried not to file away the image. He sighed.

“I’ll be eighteen in a couple of months.”

“I don’t know if I trust you to wait that long,” his friend snorted.

“That stings, Scott.”

He rolled his eyes, a “pfft” sound escaping his lips. 

“I’ll see you, man.”

“Yeah, whatever. Wait, hang on.”

“What? I’m gonna be late, Stiles.”

“Then run to class, Flash. I just wanted to ask if you think I have a chance.”

Scott stepped back toward him, “Honestly?”

“Honestly.” 

Though he wasn’t sure he wanted it, Stiles braced himself for Scott’s truth.

He shrugged. “I think anything’s possible.”

“You don’t have to be so pessim- wait, what?”

“He seems to at least like you as a person, that’s a start,” Scott jabbed, grinning. “Look, man, I gotta go.”

Stiles smirked back as Scott jogged out of the library.

“Yeah, what are you doing here? You’re gonna be late.”

Grabbing his newly de-chest-strapped backpack, Stiles ran haphazardly to his first class. 

The empty halls signaled the omen of the coming bell, which rang when Stiles was three feet from the door. Kicking his foot into the jamb, his mouth and hands opened wide in a silent, pained yelp as he clawed at empty space.

The teacher raised his eyebrows at him as he walked sheepishly into the classroom.

“Glad you decided to join us.”

“Ah, yeah, sorry, it won’t happen again.”

“I hope not.”

Slinking behind the elongated tabletop he shared with his lab partner, Stiles slumped into his seat.

As the teacher began his lesson, Stiles drew on the black surface with one finger, playing with the hem of his flannel with the other hand and trying not to mumble obscenities.

***

At lunch, Isaac pointed out yet another girl.

Stiles looked up and snorted.

“I’m not going out with Jessica Aspen.”

“Come on, she’s in you and Scott’s English class, isn’t she?”

Stiles’ eyes focused for an instant on Scott, questioning how much he had told Isaac about their English class. He shook his head in response.

“She’s not my type.” He replied, turning back to Isaac.

“Isn’t that the whole point of being bi?”

The wrapper blown off Stiles’ straw struck him square in the forehead. Scott punched his shoulder with more force than he normally would.

“I definitely deserved that.” He said smiling with closed eyes.

“Yeah, you did.” Allison added, suppressed mirth coloring her voice.

More inclined to giddiness than usual, Stiles laughed. The rest of the group joined in, finding his cackle contagious as usual.

“What’s so funny?” Lydia asked as she perched upon a stool beside them.

“We’re playing matchmaker,” Allison said, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Ooh, for whom?”

“No one!” Stiles interjected.

Met with stares, he backpedaled. “I mean, no one in particular.” Stiles fumbled, shrugging.

Lydia rolled her eyes.

“Well, I don’t think Alex and Darren are going to last. Just saying.” 

She turned to Stiles.

“Maybe you could ask her out. Or him, for that matter.”

Stiles considered this for a moment, imagining them both.

“Darren breathes through his mouth. And Alex is… Alex.”

Murmured agreements passed through the table.

Stiles sighed, “Can we not do this anymore?”

Lydia perked up, teasing. “I thought you said we weren’t matchmaking for anyone in particular.”

She let them shift uncomfortably for a moment before Allison interjected.

“Don’t worry about it. I was getting kind of bored, anyway,” she said.

Stiles looked to Allison as one might to the Virgin Mary, and she smiled like it was nothing. 

After a pause, Isaac opened his mouth again, “What about—”

“No.”

***

Stiles found himself wondering when they’d start learning anything new regarding computers or science in his Computer Science class, or when they’d start learning about the Human aspects of Human Geography. The teacher was still vapid. Her clock still seemed slow.

It was all he could do not to sprint to English.

Mr. Hale was leaning on his desk when Stiles entered the room this time, and as he sat down he tried to pretend he hadn’t spent all of the previous night visualizing himself splayed across it.

Stay frosty, Stilinski, he thought.

“Hey,” Scott whispered, apparently amused.

“What’s up?” rejoined Stiles.

“Armano’s gone.”

So he was. Stiles grinned, over-exaggerating his relief, “Thank God.”

“Thank Mr. Hale.”

“Let’s get right down to it,” Mr. Hale began. He slit his eyes, looking over the class to pick the first victim to present their homework. In the end, he started with Lydia, who sat in front, closest to the door. She never sat next to windows anymore.

“What did you bring?”

“ _ O Pioneers! _ by Willa Cather.” She stated, her voice sweet, matching her bubblegum lip gloss.

He tilted his head like he already knew the answer, but still asked. “Why?”

“For the strength of the female protagonist,” Lydia explained. “She’s become a pioneer herself for women in literature.”

“Give me a quote.”

Despite the subtle scramble around her as other students attempted to find a suitable excerpt they hadn’t thought to select, Lydia didn’t miss a beat. Obviously having foreseen this scenario, she flipped to the page she marked with a pink post-it.

“ ‘And yet, down under the frozen crusts, at the roots of the trees, the secret of life was still safe, warm as the blood in one’s heart; and the spring would come again! Oh, it would come again!’ ”

Nodding, Mr. Hale moved on. Scott had taken up the habit of sitting front and center to make himself pay more attention during class. Scanning the room, Stiles counted nine people to go before him if Mr. Hale called students by row, and twelve if he called by column.

“Stiles, tell us what you brought.”

He gaped for a moment before coming to his senses. He floundered when he couldn’t find it in his binder. Or his textbook. Or loose in his backpack.

Shit.

It wasn’t in his notebook.

Fuck.

It was in the library. He could see with sickening clarity which counter he left the single sheet of paper. He hadn’t wanted to take his copy framed on his bedroom wall for fear of this exact scenario.

“Having trouble?”

“Uh, no, I just can’t, uh,”

Mr. Hale stood; his face a mask of disappointment as he strode to the blackboard, wielding a piece of chalk like a death sentence.

P-R-E-P-A-R-A-T-I-O-N

Each letter was scrawled furiously into the green surface. Mr. Hale moved to stab a period next to the N.

“ ‘The longer I live the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.’ ” Stiles blurted, now standing next to his desk, the tips of his fingers touching the wood for balance.

Mr. Hale half-turned expectantly, still holding the stub of chalk.

Taking a moment to recover from the outburst, Stiles continued. Mr. Hale wasn’t the only one with a penchant for memorization.

“ ‘Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is ten percent what happens to me, and ninety percent how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.’ ”

Motionlessly, Mr. Hale stared at him. Stiles stared back, adamant.

_ I am not afraid of you. _

“By whom?”

“Charles Swindoll.”

“I take it you’re religious?”

“My mom was.”

Scott’s scalp rose slightly at his bluntness, giving away his raised eyebrows even from behind. A few other students he recognized shifted slightly in their seats.

“She spent a lot of time in the hospital. Her attitude got us through a lot.”

Mr. Hale nodded.

“Thank you. You can sit down, Stiles.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he obliged, refusing to break eye contact. Mr. Hale turned again, holding his gaze until Stiles slipped out of his peripheral vision. He stepped up to the blackboard again, letting the chalk roll off his fingers and into the tray lining the bottom. This time he grabbed an eraser.

“It’s going to piss me off if any of you makes me write this again,” he said with a hint of a smile seeping into his voice. He swept the word from the board in a few broad strokes.

Stiles had made him smile.

He felt strange thinking it, but for the first time in a while he mentally thanked his mother.

Before he turned back around, Stiles pumped his fist once in the air - a silent display of ecstatic self-approval. Danny patted his shoulder, Scott pretended to stretch, giving his best friend a thumbs up behind his head.

For his excitement Stiles didn’t hear the next ten presentations, but he noticed that none of them stood. He wondered if that made him look weird, one of his dad’s reruns of “Leave it to Beaver.” He decided he didn’t care; he felt proud of himself.

When Mr. Hale called on Scott, he knew the answer already, but he tuned in nonetheless.

“ _ Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead  _ by—” He paused, the author on the tip of his tongue. “Stoppard.”

Mr. Hale looked impressed, if a little wary. “I didn’t take you for an existentialist, Scott.”

Scott smiled, “I just think it’s funny. And there’s the conflict between free will and destiny.” 

He thought for a moment, “It’s like an answer to everyone who sort of re-reads a book hoping their favorite character might not die this time.”

An understanding chuckle rolled through the class. Stiles smirked at his hands resting on the desk, remembering how ineffably stoked Scott had been about acing the paper he wrote on it last year.

Yet again finding Mr. Hale’s lips distracting, Stiles jumped a little with the realization that he was staring back at him. It’s not like looking at your teacher was abnormal, he thought, but for good measure he pretended to be examining the clock; they didn’t have much longer before they would be dismissed, but judging by the pace at which Mr. Hale was rolling through their picks, Stiles figured he had to have something else planned.

After the last presentation, there were just under twenty minutes left; just enough time for a pop-quiz on the summer reading. With their luck, he knew it would be on Othello - the only one Scott had forgotten to read.

It wasn’t his job to stick his neck out over Scott’s absent-mindedness for Shakespeare. It wasn’t his job to cover Scott’s ass when he had been fighting a true alpha all summer. It wasn’t his job to do anything about it.

Stiles sighed, disgusted with himself; that was  _ exactly _ his job.

“Mr. Hale,” he called, just as the teacher had reached toward a thick stack of papers.

“What, Stiles?” He picked up the alleged quizzes.

If he just had one more night, Scott was sure to get it done. Despite the pounding in his heart, he decided it wasn’t a big deal - he’d been more underhanded for less.

“You spent all this time asking us about our favorite pieces,” he began again. “But you’re not going to tell us yours?”

“I didn’t become a teacher to do the homework I assigned.”

“You just want to grade it.” Stiles volleyed. A few smiles sprang onto the lips around him. “If you’re going morally evaluate each of us with literature, shouldn’t we evaluate you?”

Mr. Hale raised his chin. Seventeen minutes.

“I would have to think about it,” he replied flatly.

“Bullshit,” Stiles grinned. “Teachers always play favorites.”

An edgy murmur of uncomfortable laughter shuddered in the classroom. 

Stiles continued, watching for a reaction. 

“How can a pack trust its Alpha if he isn’t at full disclosure?” 

Two birds, one stone, and sixteen minutes on the clock. 

Mr. Hale deliberated, looking down at the papers still in his hands. Stiles realized that he was young enough for this to be his first high school class. That maybe he didn’t know all the tactics developed by class clowns over the centuries

“Faulkner’s  _ The Sound and the Fury _ .” He finally huffed, moving to pass out the papers.

Fifteen minutes—last chance for a spiel.

“Why?”

Mr. Hale rooted to the spot for a moment, glaring at him. “Why don’t I tell you after class?”

Stiles could hear the tune that played whenever Mario died. A barely heard “ooo” snaked through the students - he got the hot seat on a Friday. Bunch of preschoolers, Stiles thought.

Mr. Hale counted the papers out and plopped a stack onto Lydia’s desk. He didn’t look at Stiles as he placed their pile in front of Scott, who immediately passed them back. Grabbing the papers, he shifted one onto his desk and fumbled the rest to Danny.

**William Shakespeare’s** **_Othello_ ** **—A Quiz**

It was a painful gift.

He finished his quiz quickly, but knew that Scott wouldn’t be so lucky.

Absently, his eyes wandered around the room, listening to the white noise of pencils on paper.

The fourth time he looked to the corner Mr. Hale inhabited, the teacher’s glare sent a shock through his scalp. He glowered through thick lashes with a pen behind his ear, not having raised his head from whatever paper he held in his hands.

Stiles licked and bit his lip as his insides shuddered. There was something feral in his gaze, but  _ fuck _ if he couldn’t imagine the same look between his legs. Mr. Hale blinked slowly, sliding his eyes back down to his desk behind closed lids.

His stomach knotted with the thought of being alone in front of that desk again.

When the bell rang, Mr. Hale told them to pass their papers up, and for those in front to pass them to the left, toward his desk. As the sheets ruffled and conversations struck up again, Scott risked a worried look back at him, whispering “Thanks for trying, man.”

Stiles shrugged.

“I think I did okay.” 

He was lying, of course, pretty much all of the questions required a vivid recollection of the final act, but he appreciated the gesture.

As the students filed out, Scott soon had no reason to stay longer. He skulked out of the classroom, leaving Stiles to Mr. Hale’s mercy.

“You can stay there, Stiles,” he spoke, point-blank.

Already, Stiles was partially standing, so he sank back into the chair. Mr. Hale rose with a sheet of paper on a clipboard, walking around his desk to retrieve the quizzes. As he rifled through them he made his way toward Stiles, and upon finding the one he was looking for sat on top of Scott’s desk. He pulled the pen from behind his ear and quickly compared the quiz to his answer sheet, the only sounds in the room their breathing and his flipping between the papers.

One slash came down ruthlessly over what Stiles was sure was the one question he deliberated too long over. He flipped back to the front to scribble and circle something at the top of the page.

With a light flap Mr. Hale dropped the quiz in front of Stiles.  _ 95  _ glared red in his neat handwriting.

“Who told you about the quiz?” He demanded.

“No one. We just didn’t have one yesterday,” his student replied honestly.

Mr. Hale stared him down, as if looking for something. Or, Stiles thought, listening for his heartbeat.

“Why stall if you read the play?”

Pressing his lips together, Stiles looked away, “I wasn’t  _ stalling _ , really, I just wanted to know, you know?”

“Stiles.”

“What?”

“It’s not your responsibility to cover for your friends’ fecklessness.”

Stiles sat up straighter, his voice lowered.

“ _ Fecklessness _ has nothing to do with it.”

“Then what?” Intrigued by his sudden intensity, Mr. Hale waited, watching him closely.

“Why  _ The Sound and the Fury _ ?” He deflected, looking back at him. “I figured you were more into the elegant stuff than stream-of-consciousness.”

“Because it’s about order,” he sighed, letting the subject change. “And disorder.”

“Which is elegant in its own way.”

“Yes.”

Neither spoke. Neither broke eye contact.

“I’ve always liked the policy of ringing in the school year just before a weekend,” Mr. Hale affirmed. “It gives time to adjust to the  _ order _ of things.”

“I always thought it was a last chance to get wild,” Stiles replied pointedly, sarcasm dripping off his tongue.

Derek’s stony demeanor held fast as he crossed his arms.

“Personal experience?”

“Indirect,” he retorted with an insincere smile. “Mostly.”

“This weekend should be interesting, then.”

Stiles raised an eyebrow, a chill forming in his belly.

“Everyone goes a little crazy around the full moon.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Is that from personal experience?” Stiles asked quietly.

The teacher paused, considering the question.

“Tell me who you’re trying to protect.”

“No.”

A dangerous smirk spread over one side of Derek’s face as he turned the pen in his hand.

“Then go home.” 

He stood, sliding the paper off of Stiles’ desk and placing it atop the collected quizzes. He sauntered back to his corner, the pen behind his ear again after a deft movement.

Following a short struggle with his backpack, which had somehow tangled itself among the legs of his chair, Stiles began to stumble quickly toward the door in an attempt to escape.

“And Stiles,” he called.

“You have a weird habit of making people stop on their way-”

“I suggest you  _ stay _ home.”

Stiles gulped, Mr. Hale’s face was unreadable as he nodded in assent.

His hands shook the whole drive to his house.


	4. Everyone Needs A Rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, y'all!  
> I've decided to start updating on Mondays instead of Sundays - it's a lot easier on my schedule and I've been doing it anyway, so thanks for your patience!
> 
> TW: emetophobia in this chapter. Just skip the paragraph after the word "puke," if need be.
> 
> Please enjoy!

Stiles was in the shower when his phone started to buzz on his desk. Scott and Isaac refused to go easy on him at lacrosse conditioning, even after an entire summer of it. Something about building his character. He relished the water and steam loosening his muscles.

He counted two or three spots that were sure to bruise, thanks to a few graceless attempts at blocking the ball. Admittedly, though, it was fun. Especially after being chased back to his Jeep by the Saturday janitor, an occupation about which none of them were previously aware.

Beginning to feel guilty about how long this shower was taking, Stiles cut off the water and wrapped a towel around his waist. He flexed a little in the fogged mirror with a mildly impressed downward curve of his mouth. Shutting the door he looked for his phone, which he was sure he had left on the desk next to his computer. He began carefully navigating through the piles of paper and books scattered across his bedroom - clutter that had accumulated thanks to another extra-curricular dive into the supernatural. Before long he spotted it on the floor, screen-down. He picked it up; turning it over slowly, with bated breath.

No cracks. He pressed the home button with a sigh of relief.

**(6) Missed Calls**

**(3) New Messages**

He raised his eyebrows.

“Could’ve left a voicemail like a normal person,” Stiles mumbled as he unlocked it.

**Missed Call: Lydia, 10:57 PM**

**Missed Call: Lydia, 10:57 PM**

**Missed Call: Lydia, 10:57 PM**

**Missed Call: Lydia, 10:58 PM**

**Missed Call: Lydia, 10:58 PM**

**Missed Call: Lydia, 10:59 PM**

His stomach sank as he scrolled through them. It was 11:14. He pressed the home button a few more times than necessary.

**New Text Message, 10:59 PM, From: Lydia**

**> 1583 Westwood Lane NOW**

**New Text Message, 10:59 PM, From: Lydia**

**> Mr. Hales an Shove**

**New Text Message, 11:00 PM, From: Lydia**

**> *ALPHA**

Stiles was out the door in a flurry of loose-leaf, tripping over an ancient-looking tome. This was not a book to be taken out of the library, let alone kicked, for all the flirting and begging he had to fumble through with the young volunteer librarian. They hadn’t even put a barcode on the volume for fear it would damage the leather cover.

He motioned explosively for it to “stay” as he skidded toward the stairs and stopped, realizing he was still in his towel. Scrambling back into his room, he grappled on a shirt which clung awkwardly to his still-wet chest. His hair dripped as he hopped around, trying to pull a pair of boxers and jeans over his legs, slamming once into his dresser and staying there for balance. He was halfway down the steps before he remembered that his car keys were in his room. He growled and cursed quietly to himself as he went back for them.

Keys in hand, he froze in place, half crouched, and looked over his room before leaving again.

Wallet. Hoodie. Bat.

Stiles ran for the front door, typing the address into the GPS on his phone.

“Goingoutloveyoubye!” He called over his shoulder before slamming the door and jumping down the porch steps.

He realized vaguely that his father wasn't even home as he peeled out of the driveway.

“Recalculating,” his phone said calmly.

He sighed. He hadn’t even made it out of the neighborhood.

“Make a U-turn at the next legal opportunity.”

“No!”

The Jeep barreled toward the main road, with Stiles squirming in his seat as his clothes adhered uncomfortably to his skin.

“Recalculating.”

“Yeah, you are,” he grumbled.

“Turn right onto… Sunset… Street.”

“That’s more like it.”

Out of the corner of his eye Stiles could see the moon glaring in his window, swollen to painful, glowing fullness with cold, milky light. This weekend was _definitely_ going to be interesting.

Mr. Hale’s words echoed hollowly in his mind, “I suggest you _stay_ home.”

This could be a trap. Derek could be a psychotic, mass-murdering Alpha-wolf using Lydia to get to him and luring him out with a false warning.

“Fuck!”

He slammed on the brakes to make a turn he wasn’t looking for. Why was Lydia _always_ in the wrong place at the wrong time?

“Right, because I can’t have normal friends who do normal things in a normal town-” he hissed into the night.

The GPS steadily gave him direction after direction, leading him further and further from the places he felt safe. Not that there was really anything "safe" in his life anymore.

Why would Lydia call him first? He wondered. Scott or Allison would have been his first thought. They were likely more qualified to handle anything that stalked Beacon Hills than he ever would be.

A shiver went up Stiles’ spine, a sensation disconnected from the water chilling his back.

She must have found a body.

His skull buzzed.

She might have found a body that _Mr. Hale_ put there.

And now she had been out there - with him - for nearly thirty minutes.

The needle on the speedometer climbed to seventy as he streaked past a sign that may or may not have read thirty-five. He was so unfamiliar with this part of Beacon Hills he was unsure whether he was technically in the city limits.

His ribcage fluttered and he struggled to keep his foot from pressing to the floor, if only to avoid being pulled over being made to explain to his father why he was speeding. He didn’t have the time, _Lydia_ didn’t have the time for that. But neither of them had the time for him to go thirty-five.

He pressed the pedal as far as it would go.

“Turn right… onto… Westwood Lane.”

“Fucking shit!”

Stiles’ foot crashed down on the brake, feeling the mechanism lock as his Jeep protested. He skidded across the asphalt to make the turn, fishtailing into the oncoming lane of the indicated road. Jerking the steering wheel, he finally screeched to a halt next to the curb. He gasped as he pawed at his own chest and face to ensure that he was still alive.

Satisfied that his heart was beating, his forehead sank down onto the horn, making him jerk up to stop the consequent blaring.

He groaned: there went the element of surprise.

Google Maps was in for a scalding review after all this was over.

He decided to click down to the fog lights and sped up again to a steadier, less breakneck pace so he could read the numbers on the buildings. 1583 was broken-down looking warehouse.

“Of course. What else?” Stiles sighed, feeling like yet another bad sequel to the bad horror movie that was his life. He whipped out his phone, taking a few breaths to steady himself after he parked.

**New Text Message, 11:54 PM, To: Scott**

**> 1583 westwood ln. Lydia in trouble. Said mr hales an alpha.**

After silencing the device, he stuffed it and his keys into his pockets, taking a last gulp of air and holding it to calm himself as he struggled into his hoodie. He readied his bat and crept out of the Jeep as quietly as he could toward the eerily vacant building.

He stopped before rushing in like an idiot, looking for some crack in the wall to spy through; all the windows were two stories up. It looked about as lifeless on the inside as on the outside, but he couldn’t see for the dark. Exhaling, he ran his hands through the soggy mop sitting on his head a few times and considered the pros and cons of driving the Jeep into the building.

Pros:

Hitting Mr. Hale

Protection from claws/teeth

Regained element of surprise

Cons:

Hitting Lydia

Property damage

Car repairs

Explanations

Explanations

Explanations

Before he could talk himself out of it and wait for Scott to arrive God-knew-when, he tightened his grip on his bat. His knuckles turned white. He pushed open the - perhaps too conveniently - unlocked door.

He stepped inside. A shape in the middle of the enormous room made him crouch behind a stack of shipping pallets so that his eyes could adjust to the dark. Nothing happened, so he either hadn’t been seen or-

He stiffened, or Mr. Hale was playing with his food.

Stiles peeked through the slats of the wooden structure, finding that the dark figure was a girl slumped in a chair - she looked bound. Lydia.

He crept around the stack, finding that more were set up in rows all the way to the back of the warehouse. It would be nice if encounters like this didn’t ruin the horror genre of video games for him.

Moonlight poured in through a broken window above him, sending shards of light dancing in his eyes as its image bounced off of the shattered glass on the floor. Finding a suitably sized piece, he removed his hoodie, wrapping the fabric around his hand before picking it up.

Finally making it to the row across from her, he raised his weapon and ran, sliding baseball style behind the chair and starting to saw at the ropes. She stirred.

“Shh, shh,” he hushed without looking up. “I’m getting you out of here, it’s okay.”

She slumped again. He kept cutting at the ropes, making slow progress that only made him press harder, dropping the bat to use both hands on the tool. After what seemed like an eternity of breathing dust and flinching at small noises, he made it through the cords binding her wrists. Her ankles were still bound. His nerves wound tighter every moment as he wondered why no one had stopped him.

Dropping his makeshift knife, he walked around the chair to face her. He lifted her arms around his shoulders to coax her into standing. He reached around Lydia’s middle and wiggled the chair upward, the legs of the chair sliding out of the restraints and leaving the ropes loose around her ankles. He would get those off somewhere else. Somewhere far from here.

Her knees gave out just before he let go. With a grunt he pulled her back up, deciding to carry her out of the building. He would never tell her that she was a little heavier than she looked. Not that it was a bad thing, he corrected his mind, but it just wasn’t something he thought he should say.

Like, ever.

Carefully, he cradled her upper body to his chest and tucked the crook of his elbow behind her knees, running for the door. He doubted she would appreciate the fireman carry.

Despite the burning in his everywhere from the ass-whooping he invested in earlier that day, he was soon next to the Jeep and stumbling on top of her when he tried setting her down on the grass. He didn't think twice about how she smelled odd; the inside of the warehouse hadn't exactly been a crisp spring morning. He fumbled for his keys and finally unlocked the door when he realized she was standing again, the weak yellow light from the inside of the car barely reaching her figure.

Stiles gaped, jumping backward a little, “You’re not Lydia.”

Mystery girl was pretty, but her hair lacked the strawberry quality to Lydia’s blonde, her skin was tanned and her eyes were bright, _bright_ blue. Thin lips quirked into a grin that made the "never smile at a crocodile" song from his first grade production of Peter Pan spring into his mind.

If it was slightly less homicidal it might have been sexy.

“Sorry, kid,” she sneered. “But thanks for the daring rescue.”

Her fist sent a shockwave of agony through his chest that rushed past his vocal chords, sending him stumbling with a cry toward the front of the Jeep. His fraught fingers trailed against the metal, finding a hollow squeaking noise instead of the purchase he needed to right himself. She slashed across his abdomen from hip to shoulder before he sat up, ripping through his shirt and launching a splatter of his blood onto the car.

His hands hovered uselessly over the ragged gashes as he struggled to breathe through choking sobs. Slowly he tried to crawl away, but she waltzed to his other side, waiting until he managed to rise on all fours before tenderly placing a hand the side of his head and smashing it against the front bumper.

His body crumpled against the pavement, and the movement tore his wounds open further, giving him a moment of sharp clarity before his consciousness melted into an incredible throb.

From a distance he heard Lydia scream.

A slap brought him momentarily back to his senses, long enough for him to feel the blood seeping over him, and what seemed like hot metal on his belly and all the splitting abuses bouncing around his head.

“Oh, God, it’s all my fault!” someone blubbered. A girl.

When he moved his hands to stem the flow, he found another pair of hands pressing into him. Panicked, he clawed at them, digging his fingernails into the assailant’s skin to no avail.

Scott’s voice faded in, “Stiles, I’m trying to stop the bleeding - _drive_ , Lydia!”

Suddenly he forgot the pain across his body, feeling it physically leave him for a moment before it came back, but significantly was less severe. He could think slightly more coherently, but the fog in his head wouldn’t lift. Someone was gasping and yelling. Someone was sobbing - but everything was too bright and blurry to see who. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pair of iridescent red spots floating above him.

“You have to stay awake, stay with me, Stiles, come on, you’re okay, it’s okay.”

Like hell, he tried to say. Whatever he managed to slur didn’t sound like that. The voice continued more quietly, “I think he has a concussion.”

Stiles shouted again as the ground rumbled. There was an echo whenever he screamed, but it sounded warped and far away. He hoped he didn’t sound as girly as the reverberation did when it bounced back to him.

Would somebody stop that ringing? It made him want to puke.

The ground bumped under him, making the hands slip off of his body. Every ounce of anguish rushed back to him, gurgling up the back of his throat. Regardless of the pain he seized up as the hot bile finally surged out of his throat.

“Christ - we’re almost there, stay awake, come on, Stiles.”

Scott’s hands were back on him, and Stiles grabbed at them more gently this time, squeezing his. He would have nodded in assent, but he remembered Danny’s concussion and how they wouldn’t let him move his head.

The floor stopped moving under him. He wished Scott wouldn’t talk so much, but it must have been important if they needed a gurney from inside. A sharp bang from a car door closing rattled his brain, but then it was quiet. Except for the goddamn ringing.

Another bang sounded, closer this time, and voices asking question after question and shouting tore through his skull. He shrieked as he was dragged across the floor and hoisted onto another surface - Scott was gone.

The world turned brilliant white and stung the backs of his eyes. He could tell the ground was moving again but it was much smoother. The people wouldn’t stop yelling even when he yelled back - he tried to say there was something wrong because everything _hurt_. His eyes rolled open and he squinted at whoever grabbed his hand.

Mom.

No, Scott’s mom.

There were tears in her eyes.

“Why is everyone crying?” He tried to ask, but she shushed him.

“I’m going to go call your dad, okay? You’re fine, baby, everything is going to be okay.”

Melissa saw Stiles’ eyebrow furrow for just a moment before his grip on her hand failed. She let herself fall behind as the crowd of nurses and doctors wheeled her boy - she corrected herself: the sheriff’s boy - toward the OR.


	5. Fragile but Beating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's going to get two chapters in two days!  
> You guys!  
> (Because you're great and I'm so sorry I left you hanging on that last bit)
> 
> <3

A low ache pulled Stiles out of sleep, but fighting through the lethargy to concentrate was enough to keep him fading in and out. Light filtered into the room from the window, sending streaks of white across the whirring machines set up around him. Cold air trickled through his nostrils from a tube wrapped behind his ears.

Out of his peripheral vision he saw a nurse shuffling to his side.

“Sorry to wake you, honey, but I need to make sure your head doesn’t get any worse. How do you feel?”

“Okay,” he rasped, shifting in the hospital bed.

“Oh, no, no, sweetheart,” she rushed, placing a hand gently on one shoulder, “you’ve got to keep still. We don’t want you to hurt yourself. Just relax.”

He obliged gratefully as she pushed a button on the side of his bed, inclining his upper body enough for him to see her. Her skin was dark and littered with laugh lines.

She smiled at him gently, “I’m just going to check your eyes, okay?”

He swallowed as best he could with a thick, dry mouth. “Yeah.”

She hovered a thin flashlight over each of his pupils, watching carefully as they contracted under the beam. 

“Looking good, sweetheart,” she grinned. The name tag pinned to her scrubs read “Grace.”

“Where’s my dad?” Stiles asked, concern overcoming the haze.

“He was here all night. He and your friends just went to grab a bite. I can tell them you’re awake, if you want.”

He thought for a moment, “Yeah.” He amended: “Please.”

“Do you remember how you got here?”

He did remember. But he was sure they’d only keep him longer if he told the truth - perhaps in a more padded room.

“It’s okay if you don’t.”

Stiles defaulted to the usual explanation, hoping to match Scott’s story.

“Mountain lion.” 

Grace smiled again, “You had us scared for a minute. Talking about books and girls and wolves. There haven’t been wolves in this part of California in-”

“Almost ninety years,” Stiles murmured absently.

She hummed in assent. 

“I’ll go get your dad. If you start hurting,” she pointed out a button near his left hand. “Just push this. And if you need help, push the red one right here. Alright?”

“Yeah,” he smiled back. “Thanks.”

“If you need to sleep, don’t be afraid to send them out.”

The door shut. He was alone in a very white cubicle.

He picked his head up to look around, but the dizziness sent the room spinning. 

After a moment he tried again, pulling feebly at the thin gown to see his abdomen. Bandages covered most of him, from his left hip to his right shoulder. Morbid curiosity made his hands itch for the clipboard at the foot of the bed.

Another itch told him he had a bag full of piss hanging somewhere in the room.

His face contorted. A twinge in his chest implied a broken rib as he tried to take a breath to calm himself.

His heart beat hard. Fragile, but alive and pumping. He closed his eyes to focus on it instead of his progressively more infuriated outlook on the human condition.

“The longer I live the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.” He whispered to himself.

Ever since he was a child it had been these same words in this same setting. He didn’t know if it was better or worse to be the one hooked up to yards of tubes and wires. Stiles clenched his jaw again, the phantom stench of antiseptic and sickness sat in the back of his throat despite the odorless oxygen he breathed.

Sheriff Stilinski was the first in the room, stopping breathless in the doorway like he had run all the way there. The boy smiled, his throat tightening slightly.

Staring at his son, whose feet were nearly off the end of the bed and tenting the stiff hospital blankets, he registered a flash of bittersweet amusement at how big his boy had become. He tried to ignore how much he looked like his mother.

Mr. Stilinski stumbled forward a little, pulling a chair next to the bed, and grabbed Stiles’ hand in both of his own. Looking down with a sigh, he held the captive hand to his forehead.

“God, Dad, you look like hell.”

The sheriff snorted as he looked up, blinking hard to dispel the brightness rimming his eyes. He coughed out a laugh.

“I was working on how to yell at you, and now I can’t think of anything.”

“Well, you suck at yelling at me anyway.” Stiles laughed, flinching at the stronger twinge in his chest.

His dad worried over him, hands hovering above his son.

“It’s fine, I’m fine.” He held up the device connected to the pain medication and wiggled it in his hand before depressing the button. One of the machines beeped. Something cold spread through his arm.

The sheriff’s face was drawn, ignoring the strained smile on his son’s face.

“Drugs are great.”

No reaction.

“You could have died, Stiles.”

He bit his lip. His father didn’t look up.

“Dad,” he pleaded.

“No.” Mr. Stilinski stopped him short, “Why would you go alone like that?”

Stiles stared at his free palm.

“I had to help her, Dad. I couldn’t just leave Lydia to Mr. Hale.”

“Mr. Hale?”

“He had her.”

“Stiles,” his father started. “Stiles, Mr. Hale is the one who  _ saved _ you.”

He shook his head, his eyebrows drawing together.

“No, Scott and Lydia-”

“Derek pulled that girl off of you.”

There was a beat of silence, Stiles’ mouth hung slightly open.

“You should have called me,” his father began again.

“What, so you could’ve wound up in the hospital, too?”

The sheriff grunted, “So that I could have  _ shot _ the crazy-”

Having apparently waited long enough in the hall, Lydia and Scott burst through the door. Stiles blessed his lucky stars for having friends with as little patience as he did.

“No offense, Sheriff, but you can’t keep a monopoly on him,” Lydia called with a shaky, yet demanding voice.

The addressed hid his indignation a little unsuccessfully, hanging his head for a moment with a sigh, but looked up at her with a smile on his lips.

“None taken. I’ll be outside.”

He ruffled Stiles’ hair and clapped a hand on Scott’s shoulder on the way out.

Lydia took his father’s place immediately, groping for something to say.

“I’m so sorry,” she said tearfully.

Stiles took her hand, squeezing her fingers. “If you get snot on me you’re gone.”

She smiled, quickly wiping her eyes.

“You look…”

“Alive?”

“Yeah,” she laughed a watery laugh. “I’m sorry, I just-”

“It’s not your fault.”

She gawked, “Of course it’s my fault!”

Stiles shook his head, partly to fight the fatigue settling on his eyelids.

“I’m the one who ran in there like a moron.”

“I should’ve explained, though.”

“It’s not your fault I made a lot of bad assumptions.”

Scott and Lydia nodded somberly.

“What the hell happened?”

Scott started first, “I got there as fast as I could. I found Lydia with Mr. Hale around the back. He explained everything.”

He puzzled, turning back to Lydia. “And you were there because?”

She pursed her lips with a knowing look.

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know, but the woman inside killed him.”

Scott affirmed, “She was an Omega.”

“Where is she now? And Mr. Hale?”

Lydia and Scott looked at each other.

“Uh,” Scott sighed, his eyebrows knit.

Her lips a hard line, Lydia finished his thought.

“He killed her.”

“What?” Stiles jerked his head up against the morphine’s drowsy undertow.

“The guy Lydia found wasn’t the first. Allison said she and her dad had been hunting her themselves,” Scott backpedaled.

“I thought you’d be relieved,” Lydia added.

Stiles wasn’t sure how he felt.

“So where’s Mr. Hale?”

“We don’t know,” Scott exhaled.

Rolling his head back onto the pillow, Stiles closed his eyes tightly and breathing hard through his nose, the air awkwardly rushing around the tubes.

“Wxcuse us for driving you to the hospital!” Lydia snarled thinly.

He let out a last breath through his mouth to avoid the strange feeling, lifting his head up with a little more difficulty.

“Sorry, I know.” 

They were quiet. 

“Thank you.”

Silence settled over them for another moment, “What the hell did you eat yesterday before you went to Westwood?” Scott asked.

He thought for a moment, “Taco Bell?”

Lydia scoffed, making a disgusted face through her laughter.

“What?”

Chortling, Scott gasped between words, “Your puke smelled like hot sauce.”

Lydia groaned in unison with Stiles, all three of them laughing. He clutched at his chest after a moment. His friends’ hands hovered over him.

“I’m good, it’s fine. Hey, Lydia, can you give me and Scott a second?”

She frowned, but nodded, slipping her hand out of his fingers and adjusting her shirt.

When Lydia shut the door, he asked.

“How bad was it?”

Scott didn’t miss a beat.

“Hairline fractures on your sternum, three broken ribs, concussion, blood transfusion, eighty staples to close you up and, like, a hundred stitches in the deep parts.”

Stiles’ eyes widened, a smirk twitching the corner of his mouth. “No shit?”

“No shit,” his smile spread to Scott’s face. “How are you so okay?”

He shrugged, “Well, I am high as a kite.” he let out a breathy chuckle. “Are you okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you used your wolf juju on the way here.”

He pondered for a moment and smiled, half-apologetic.

“What else was I going to do?”

Stiles didn’t smile.

“I’m fine,” he asserted. “You scared the shit out of me, but I’m fine.”

Guiltily, he nodded. “Lydia seems okay?”

“She was pretty shaky for a while. But you know her; she can handle anything,” Scott explained reverently. “She’ll be a lot better now that she’s seen you awake.”

“And you really don’t know where Mr. Hale went?”

“No, dude, I told you.” It wasn’t worry in his expression so much as mild discomfort. He wanted to know Derek’s whereabouts as much as Stiles, but felt he could be trusted enough to disappear for the rest of the weekend.

Sighing, he scrunched his lips together. “What did you mean he explained everything?”

“I mean he explained, like,  _ everything, _ ” Scott replied unhelpfully.

A strangled gurgle of frustration emanated from Stiles’ throat. Before he could ask him to go on, a knock sounded on the door, both of the boys turning toward the noise. Scott looked at his friend, whose mouth had curved down at the corners.

Stiles licked his lips and raised his voice, blinking, “Uh, come in?”

The door swung open, Stiles’ father poking his head inside.

“The doctor wants to talk to you.”

“Oh. Yeah, okay.”

Making his way to the door Scott patted Stiles’ leg, shuffling awkwardly past the man who entered. He was wearing a stereotypical, long, white medical coat and two wide rows of teeth glinting in the fluorescent light.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty!” He greeted with forced amicability, “I’m Doctor Andrews.”

Stiles didn’t like him.

His father was silent as the doctor went through the checklist of his injuries; he spoke in terms that were a bit too simple than was entirely necessary, the sheriff rolling his eyes as he explained what a concussion was.

“Your concussion isn’t the main issue, though, it was fairly mild.”

“Mild,” Mr. Stilinski scoffed.

The doctor didn’t look at him, but took on a pointed tone.

“Your CT scan came back normal and your nurse tells me you haven’t suffered any memory loss, so I’ll go ahead and classify it as such. Communication is our most important tool when treating concussions.”

Stiles bit his tongue, his distaste mounting when he didn’t use Grace’s name.

“We used to treat fractures of the breastbone and ribs with compressive bandages, but they restrict breathing, increasing chances of lung collapse and pneumonia. Since the trauma didn’t result in any of your ribs deviating from their usual positions, for now we’re only prescribing bed rest, close monitoring, and a few good doses of morphine.” 

The doctor grinned again, “Your catheter will be removed once we’re sure your wounds won’t open up on the way to the bathroom, and you shouldn’t need the ventilator for long, but we want to make sure you’re getting enough oxygen. You may notice it can be a bit painful to breathe.”

He nodded.

“That’s nothing to worry about. We expect it, actually, but it’ll get better soon.”

“How soon is ‘soon?’ ” Stiles asked.

“Your wounds should be easily manageable in two weeks. The fractures, however, could take six or seven to heal.”

“And how much of that time will he need to stay in the hospital?” His father inquired.

“I can’t really say aside from it being up to Stiles. What I  _ can _ say is that your son needs to rest.”

The sheriff didn’t move.

“As in sleep, Mr. Stilinski.”

His drooping eyes flashed irritably.

“You think I don’t know-”

“Dad,” Stiles cut him off. “It’s no big deal. I’m fine, go home.”

Reluctantly, he acquiesced, planting a kiss on his son’s forehead.

“Oh, hang on.”

He stopped, Stiles’ hand on his forearm. The doctor left the room, closing the door behind him.

“There’s a book on the floor in my room, it’s huge, you can’t miss it - could you tell Scott to take it to Drew at the public library before school Monday?”

“I’ll do it myself.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. Get some sleep, Stiles.”

“You, too.”

Squeezing his hand, he kissed the top of his head again and left the cramped box of a room.

He could hear voices outside, and receding steps. With each echo Stiles slipped further from the humming, beeping space, finally succumbing to the influence of the IV drip in his arm.

**…**

Early the next day he noticed that his phone was missing, he absently flipped through the channels on the small television in the room, itching to move but afraid to do much of anything to test his condition.

For the billionth time, his mind wandered back to Mr. Hale. Shaking his head, he tried (also for the billionth time) to convince himself that he wasn’t worried about him. Contemplation from his moments of solitude in the softly beeping room led him to believe that Scott trusted their teacher since the incident at Westwood, but to what extent was unclear - much like his insistence that Mr. Hale explained “everything.”

Nothing worth watching was on the TV.

Soon, the door swung open again, wafting in the scent of much welcomed food. Stiles could have cried at the sight of Melissa McCall balancing a nearly overflowing cafeteria tray and a pile of magazines. She set the tray down on the bedside table, sat next to him on the mattress, and graciously accepted his overflowing praise.

He sighed with an air of ecstasy, unsure of where to start. She handed him a packet of plasticware before he started eating it with his hands.

Having scarfed down much of the food, he looked back up at her. He knew how often Scott brought her something during a late shift - he doubted she had time to eat during the day.

“Have you eaten?” 

“Not since breakfast, but-”

Stiles cut her off with a quick lie, “Orange Jell-o and I have this disagreement, so,” he pushed the wobbly container toward her along with a few of the other items. At his insistence she picked at these as he brusquely shoved forkfuls in his mouth.

“How are you feeling?”

“Pretty good, now,” he said, smiling sincerely at the food. 

His face fell when he looked at her. 

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Stiles.”

“I scared everyone.”

“Dr. Andrews knows what he’s doing, I knew you were in good hands.”

He raised an eyebrow, mumbling sarcastically into his fork, “Yes, what a great guy.” The comment earned him a swat on the leg, but he could tell that, outside of the professional realm, she held a similar opinion.

They passed their meal happily, both of them eating quickly for different reasons. After countless assurances that he was feeling fine, Ms. McCall got up to leave, gathering the tray.

“I have to get back to work, I just wanted to check on you.”

Stiles feigned offense, “Go on, leave me here all alone.” He cracked a smile as she scoffed.

“Need anything?” She asked at the door.

He pondered for a moment longer than necessary, if only to be in someone else’s company for a few more seconds.

“Nah.”

She nodded, smiling. “Bye, Stiles.”

“Save some lives,” He called as she left.

“It’s what I do.”

The door swung shut.

After a short nap, he flipped through the magazines, skimming the interesting content first. When he realized that he would have no other distractions - as the TV still had nothing to offer - he went back and read every word. Ads, articles, graphics, drug warnings, anything to pass the time. By the time there was nothing left for him to read, the clock on the wall read just past 4:00, and he knew entirely too much about deep-sea fishing and the side effects of Novinadrine. School had let out not long ago. He didn’t have to wonder if Scott would come directly after the bell.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Come in.”

The door opened slowly. With some genuine concern, Stiles looked up. “You shouldn’t drive so fast, dude - I’m not going anywhere.”

Stiles’ breathing hitched as his visitor entered the room and shut the door, his heart pounding.

“Mr. Hale.”


	6. Miracle and Coincidence

“Mr. Hale.”

Derek's eyes, framed by dark, sleepless half-moons, scanned over Stiles with a furrowed brow.

Feeling acutely vulnerable, his student realized that his hospital gown and blankets were painfully thin. Derek was a statue of divine fury, thinly contained by stern consternation. Whether Stiles fully registered that he was a physically tangible being standing in the room with him, though, he was unsure. 

As quickly as Stiles registered the emotion radiating off Derek’s shoulders, it dissipated into a strained, ironic smile as he threw his bag onto the counter by the door.

“ ‘Mr. Hale’ is a little cold, isn’t it?” He asked, finally stepping from the two tiles he had occupied as if from a pedestal. The smile lingered as he came forward, resting his leather messenger bag on the counter, and lowered himself into the chair next to the bed. He leaned back nonchalantly with his legs spread.

Groping for something to say, Stiles became horribly aware of the tube in his dick. Derek waited patiently, though with raised eyebrows, as the boy’s mouth flapped open and shut silently. A question popped into his mind.

“Who was he?”

Derek waited for clarification.

“The guy the Omega killed.”

“I don’t know his name,” he replied, shaking his head. “He was homeless. Squatting. All the police know is that a mountain lion got him.”

“And you got the mountain lion,” Stiles added.

Derek was silent. Patient.

“I thought you killed him,” Stiles paused. “And that you were holding Lydia hostage.”

“So you came alone, armed with nothing but a bat, to a warehouse in the middle of nowhere?”

“I didn’t say it was the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

Derek leaned forward, nostrils flaring, “I thought I told you to stay home.”

Stiles’ lips formed a thin, flat line.

“Oh, sorry, I guess I should’ve let you kill Lydia, for all I knew.”

Derek regrouped, “What possessed you to cut the woman loose?”

Jutting his chin forward indignantly, Stiles repeated himself, “I thought you had taken Lydia hostage.”

Growling, Derek ran a hand through his hair, casting his eyes to the ceiling and crossing his arms as he straightened himself in the chair.

“You didn’t think,” he punctuated this by rubbing his eyes, “it was a little strange that she was tied with wolfsbane roots?”

The witty retort Stiles choked on didn’t fit this new information.

“Apparently not.”

“We don’t all have night-vision, okay?” Stiles snapped with his voice - and arms - raised. Immediately he winced, screwing his eyes shut against the pain in his torso. To his relief, it subsided quickly. When he let go of the breath in his chest, he looked up to find Derek leaning over him with a hand on his leg.

Stiles faltered, pressing the button for his pain medication as his ears turned red.

“I have drugs for that, you know.”

Derek kept his eyes locked with Stiles’, slowly receding back into his seat. His hand lingered a moment longer than necessary.

“You need to be more careful.”

“As much as that sounds great, I do better when I’m reckless,” Stiles replied.

No amount of meticulous planning, cross-referencing or research was enough to prepare Stiles for the way his heart sprinted when someone he loved was in danger. Easily bruised, he almost couldn’t help bringing a baseball bat to a knife fight. A wit like his was enough, so far, to keep him alive - but the still unfamiliar mattress beneath him was a grim reminder of his mortality.

“I could make the pain go away,” Derek offered, watching him through his eyelashes.

“I just said I had drugs for that.”

“That’s not what I mean, Stiles.”

Something in his belly shuddered.

“No,” Stiles said conclusively as heat rose again in his face.

His teacher paused, listening.

Derek loomed over him, “You have a tell-tale heart.”

Stiles cursed internally as the organ beat faster. If only he could rip up the floorboards and bury himself under them to hide from Derek’s gaze, full of life and vision and power.

“I never liked hospitals.”

Stiles sank back into the mattress a bit more as his teacher leaned forward with half lidded eyes.

“No one does. But I don’t want to put people in them.”

“I could teach you to control it. Keep you safe.”

Gulping, Stiles tried to ignore the hand resting lightly on his thigh.

“Why don’t we stick to English?”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

So was his heart, which was trying maim itself upon his cracked sternum.

A knock sent the werewolf smoothly, but quickly retreating from Stiles.

Grace opened the door.

“Hey, honey,” she looked sympathetically at Stiles, startling slightly at Derek’s brooding figure. “I’m just here to change your bandages.” As a gesture of solidarity she held up a sterile packet of supplies.

She flicked her eyes again in Derek’s direction, obviously wanting an introduction, but too polite to ask for one.

“Grace, this is my English teacher, Mr. Hale.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hale.”

“Likewise,” He flashed a disarming, slightly uncanny smile.

“I was just bringing Stiles the work that he missed at school today,” he continued.

“I wish more teachers would take that kind of initiative in schools these days. If you want to step outside, for a moment-”

“He can stay,” Stiles interrupted.

“I’ll stay,” Derek echoed only a beat after Stiles interjected.

Grace gave him a look, but shook her head, making no move to dismiss his visitor.

Stiles had quietly taken comfort in Mr. Hale’s presence, despite arguing over his humanity. Even more pressing, though, was his distinct feeling that Derek would run off if let out of his sight.

Derek stood and took a spot by the window to get out of her way.

“I hope you’re not squeamish,” she muttered under her breath. Moving the blankets, she began to help Stiles slip off his gown. Derek looked out the window.

“I’m not. Actually, I thought about being a biology teacher for a while,” Derek replied.

Though a ghost of surprise crossed her face that heard her, Grace did not falter.

“What stopped you?”

He thought for a moment, “I guess I just loved English more.”

“We all have to follow our passions.”

Stiles found himself nodding.

The majority of his abdomen was still covered in bandages. Pushing the buttons on the side of the bed, Grace reclined Stiles until he was flat on his back. She washed her hands thoroughly, donning a pair of blue gloves.

Derek watched as she began removing the bandages, distantly registering Stiles’ nervous laughter.

“I was scared it was like a band-aid.”

Grace chuckled. “We like to be a little more gentle than that.”

Stiles watched the adhesives peel away easily Grace’s careful hands. While she threw away the large pads of gauze, he stared at the iodine stained skin. Bruises mottled the ugly lines of staples holding slightly puckered tissue together. The surface was disconcertingly slick and shining, but he realized it was only an ointment as Grace cleaned the four long marks. Though the process stung a bit, it passed without incident.

He wondered if this was how Frankenstein’s creature felt, all staples and stitches. His outlook, especially upon having some pretty cool scars, was much more positive than the character’s, though.

“You’re looking good, baby,” Grace said, smiling. “Maybe even ahead of schedule.”

She repositioned the bed so he was sitting up.

“Does that mean I’m going home?”

“That’s up to the doctor.”

Of course it was. Stiles put his gown back on.

Grace cleared the room and left. Stiles thanked her as the door closed.

“ ‘Ahead of schedule,’ ” Stiles repeated, grinning like he just won a bet.

Derek looked unconvinced. His arms were crossed, his eyebrows drawn close together.

“Hey,” Stiles ventured. “It could have been worse.”

“Exactly.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, and his head, away from Derek. He felt like he had been fighting this battle for years. It dawned on him that, in fact, he had been. It was a little different, however, when Mephistopheles was standing in the room.

“Stiles, the bite is a gift-”

“Thanks but no thanks.”

If Scott said he didn’t want it, he believed him. He had made it this far as “just Stiles.” He could keep going. He totally wasn’t trying to convince himself of these facts.

Derek sighed, but relented.

“Okay.”

They didn’t speak for a moment.

“Thanks. For saving me.” He didn’t meet his teacher’s gaze.

Mr. Hale grunted, glowering for a moment before moving from his spot near the window. Upon reaching the counter, he rifled through his bag, producing a small stack of papers and holding them out.

“You gave this much homework on the third day of school?” He asked, taking the packet.

“No,” Derek smiled slightly. “That’s from all your classes. I’m not that much of a hard-ass.”

Stiles tried not to think about his teacher's ass.

“You went to all my classes?”

“I had Scott and Lydia help. Oh, and,” He turned back to his bag, remembering something. “I believe this is yours.”

He waved Stiles’ phone in his hand before giving it to him. The hunk of plastic and glass glowed to life.

Stiles stammered, unsure what to do with his gratitude. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Derek warned, gesturing again to the papers sitting in Stiles’ lap, “You couldn’t pay me to do all that.”

Flipping through the papers, Stiles was beginning to think he was right. But, he thought, anything was better than the agitated boredom he struggled with all day. 

Trying not to be diverted, he put the stack aside and silenced his phone against the onslaught of notifications that were bound to roll in.

“Why did you have her tied up?” He began.

Derek sat back in the chair near Stiles’ bed, adjusting his position slightly to keep the door within his peripheral vision.

“I didn’t want to kill her. Lydia showed up at the warehouse soon after I did.”

“She was drawn in by the body.”

Derek nodded. “The girl, Mara—”

“You knew her name?” Stiles asked.

“Yes, we were having a decent conversation until we were interrupted,” Derek snapped. “Mara told me her pack had been wiped out - she didn’t say by whom. But she claimed that the man in the warehouse jumped her, so she defended herself. I believed her, too.”

“Until?”

“Until Lydia came. Mara spooked when she saw her. When Lydia started screaming,” he trailed off.

“She does that,” Stiles nodded. “Did she hurt her?”

“Didn’t get the chance to.”

Stiles nodded, his brow furrowed, “And you just happened to have a wolfsbane roots in your utility belt?”

Derek rolled his eyes, “I’ve been tracking her movements for a while. I was hoping to get to her before she hurt someone, but,” he dipped his head to one side, looking toward the ceiling. “That didn’t work out.”

“So you tied her up inside.”

“Once I snapped Lydia out of it, yes. I’ve read about banshees, but hearing one,” he shook his head, “it’s different.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“When did Scott get there?”

“Right after Lydia came back to herself. He must have made a similar assumption about the situation as you - but he was level-headed enough to listen to reason before he came at me.”

Guilt sank in his stomach. They could have hurt each other, and it would have been his fault.

“And then we heard you yell at the front of the building.”

“So here we are.” Stiles had enough of an imagination to fill in the blanks after that.

Derek nodded, “Here we are. Maybe she was telling the truth and the full moon had her on edge. Either way, the violence was inexcusable. I couldn’t let her go.”

Stiles fiddled with the hem of a blanket.

“I did what I had to,” Derek continued, searching for eye contact.

He swallowed, meeting his gaze, “I know.”

Derek turned his attention toward the door, “Scott is here.” He sniffed audibly, “Along with someone who wears truly repugnant aftershave.”

No sooner than the words left his mouth, Scott knocked and entered with Stiles’ father - whose eyes widened at the sight of Mr. Hale in the room. He looked back at Scott, double-taking at Derek with an air of recognition.

“When you said ‘Mr. Hale’ I thought it was a coincidence,” he said, amazed.

“Hello, Mr. Stilinski,” Derek responded coolly, standing to extend a hand.

The addressed shook it and proceeded to stake a claim on the seat near the window.

Stiles and Scott looked at each other, confused, and turned to the sheriff.

“What the fuck?” They asked simultaneously.

“Language, boys,” growled Stiles’ father.

They apologized. Simultaneously.

“About eight years ago, Derek’s house burned down. That’s when we met.” Mr. Stilinski explained to Scott and Stiles, who gaped, incredulous.

Stiles tried not to cringe at the thought of his ten-year-old self. He was unsuccessful, failing as he thought of the age gap between himself and his teacher.

“You mean the haunted house,” Scott’s voice dropped to an embarrassed whisper, noticing Derek glared at him from the corner of his eye.

The image clicked in Stiles’ mind. A hollow shell of a home that always appeared to the boys as the abandoned husk of a cicada. They found it long after the last flames licked against the once beautiful, soaring ceilings. In their young wonderment they convinced themselves it would crunch under their feet if trespassed upon the rickety porch. That scorched, papery shreds of the house's corpse blowing away in the wind. They took turns scaring each other with stories of what happened to the place, and to its inhabitants, imagining all horrors that filled abandoned spaces. 

More than once a cold, dripping fear woke Stiles in the night after those tales. He was sure that some of those papery bits had stuck to the bottoms of his shoes, leading malevolent ghosts to the darkness of his closet where they waited to wrap their burned and bony fingers around his neck. 

More than once had he asked his father what had really happened, hoping for some natural explanation to dispel the terrifying ones that consumed him. The most he ever extracted was that the house burned down, and that most of the family living there had died.

Needless to say, this did not quell his nightmares.

Mr. Hale took a breath through his nose, relaxing his flared nostrils and sighing as he diverted his attention back to the sheriff. He crossed his arms, inclining his chin to level his eyes with Mr. Stilinski’s.

“You also arrested me for my sister’s murder a couple of years ago.”

Stiles looked accusingly at his father, wondering what case he had managed to keep under wraps.

Shooting a look back at his son, Mr. Stilinski clarified, “I do maintain some professionalism, Stiles, even if you like to snoop around my crime scenes. The body we found in the woods, or, what was left of her-”

Stiles interrupted him, addressing Scott lowly, “The night you were bitten.”

Both Derek and Mr. Stilinski glanced at Scott.

“I kept the details from you. I didn’t want you screwing around if there was a murderer on the loose. Anyway, the charges were dropped. It turned out to be a-” The sheriff’s eyes widened with realization, “A wolf attack.”

All eyes in the room slowly turned to Derek. Stiles found some comfort in the fact that he wasn’t hooked up to a heart monitor, despite the two living ones in the room.

“I didn’t kill my sister,” Derek asserted coldly after a moment.

Scott listened, ostensibly, to the sterile quiet of the room.

“He’s telling the truth.”

A breath that had nearly gone stale escaped Mr. Stilinski’s lungs.

“So why did you come back to Beacon Hills?” Stiles asked.

“I had to bury her. While I was here I figured I should finish my degree and,” Derek shrugged, “kill my uncle.”

The sheriff perked up slightly, “Is that a confession?”

“Not without a body,” Derek replied, suppressing the ghost of a smile.

Stiles blinked hard, “Well, that’s-” 

“Illegal,” Scott hissed, staring unabashedly at their teacher.

Without missing a beat, Stiles continued, “But why?”

“He killed Laura,” Derek huffed.

Scott’s eyes drifted toward the floor. The room was still again.

Snapping his head up, a finger raised as if to pin down his revelation, Scott spoke, “Wait, so he was a werewolf, too?”

Derek rolled his eyes at the boy, inclining his head to stare caustically at him.

“What was his name?” Stiles asked to take the heat off of his friend - with the mention of the Laura he began to put together the pieces as Scott had managed to. 

With narrowed eyes, Derek answered cautiously, “Peter.”

The boys locked eyes, mirroring one another, “Holy shit.”

The sheriff coughed a little. They apologized, still in sync.

“Did I miss something?” Derek asked.

Turning back to the other alpha, Scott explained, “Peter was the one who bit me.”

“Not to mention everyone else,” Stiles chimed in.

Derek’s interest piqued visibly.

“How many of us are there?” He asked, curious after absorbing their information.

Scott looked up, counting internally, “Six, including me,” he concluded, circling his eyes back to Derek’s.

“And Peter turned all of you?”

“Me and Isaac, plus a couple others at school.”

“But Ethan and Aiden left their pack,” Stiles explained.

Mr. Hale’s stared out the window, his unfocused gaze calculating but, as it seemed to Stiles, excited.

“Is Peter dead?” The sheriff ventured.

For an answer, Derek’s refocused eyes flashed scarlet for an instant. His father bristled visibly.

Stiles attempted damage control while trying not to sound too relieved that Peter was gone for good.

“Dad, sophomore year? He killed all those people - he tried to kill Lydia.”

“Peter was nuts,” Scott confirmed.

Rubbing his eyes, the sheriff grunted in assent. He opted to hold his head in one hand with an explosive sigh.

“That would explain why we hadn’t heard anything from him in so long,” he said.

Quiet fell again. Derek and Scott straightened their posture, turning their heads toward the door as if with pricked ears. Someone knocked.

“Come in,” Stiles answered.

Grace had returned with a male nurse, this time insisting that everyone leave the room. When no one moved, Stiles asked them to wait outside.

The nurse checked his bandages, and, finding nothing unsatisfactory, switched his IV for a bottle of pills, which he could take from every four hours.

“You’re taking it out, huh?”

The nurse chuckled knowingly, scrubbing his hands under the water. 

“Now that we know you can get to the bathroom yourself, yeah.”

“Thank god.”

It was over quickly and mercifully, though the catheter burned on its way out. It joined the nurse’s pair of gloves in a bin labelled with a biohazard symbol.

As the nurse washed his hands again, Stiles asked if he would help him up. He obliged, and Stiles wished absently that he had a pair of socks as the icy linoleum sent chills through his feet to his scalp.

“Do you know where my clothes are?”

The nurse shook his head, “Sorry.”

“Eh, I didn’t like that shirt, anyway,” he lied. Foggily, he remembered that, wherever it was, it was in bloody tatters. He had no idea where his hoodie had gone - nor his pants - let alone his socks. For all he knew his entire outfit from that night had been discarded.

The nurse traded his gown for a pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt his father had apparently brought.

“Thanks,” Stiles said, smiling despite his frustration.

“No problem. Want to walk around?”

“Yeah.”

Though his first steps were tentative, Stiles discovered quickly that his range of motion while walking was uninhibited, for the most part. He had move stiffly to keep his upper body still, but he could navigate  the room without any unbearable pain. Grinning, he asked for the nurse, to whom his smile had spread, to let everyone in again.

Despite his father’s worried eyes, a smirk crept onto his lips as Stiles showed off his mobility. Scott beamed crookedly, thanking Grace and the other nurse as they left them to retrieve the doctor. Derek was nowhere to be found.


	7. Freedom

Derek wasn’t very good at pretending he hadn’t made a mistake.  
Stiles wasn’t very good at pretending he was going to let it slide.  
So when Derek stopped halfway through the parking lot, realizing that he forgot his bag by Stiles’ hospital bed, he knew he was in for a little hell if he didn’t think of a way to gain the upper hand.  
Tilting his head to the sky, he sighed with eyes closed in reflection.  
Abruptly, he turned around, walking face-first into a passing vehicle.  
This was going to be a long year.

***

When Derek finally opened the door to Stiles’ room, he was relieved to find him alone.  
The relief evaporated when he saw the contents of his bag no longer inside his bag.  
He scowled, half from genuine disapproval, half to hide his amusement at the pure fear on his student’s face.  
“Uh,” Stiles stammered. “Busted?”  
“Busted,” Mr. Hale agreed. “Lucky for you, though, I would find a TA supremely useful.”  
“What?”  
Crossing the room, Derek gathered his bag, along with the papers stacked haphazardly around Stiles. He shuffled through the packets, selecting a few, and divided the remaining assignments in half.  
“Teacher’s assistant,” he said, handing Stiles one of the stacks. “Since you’ve already read some of your classmates’ work, you might as well grade them.”  
Stiles’ eyes narrowed to slits, his eyebrows pushed together.  
“Is this blackmail?”  
“I’d more readily call it an opportunity for redemption. And a way to keep an eye on you.”  
The pounding in Stiles’ ears filled the silence. A nervous tickle wiggled under his heart.  
“I’ll need those back next Monday.”  
“I’ll bring them to you myself.”  
Derek raised an eyebrow.  
“Humans heal, too, you know. Eventually.”  
His teacher straightened, gave a shrug, and left.  
Stiles found himself unsure what he just signed up for.  
Scott and Dr. Andrews returned before he could fully process the implications of his newfound position, bearing good news.  
“Your dad’s signing the paperwork - you’re going home today!”

***

Outside, the deliciously clear air smelled of sun-baked asphalt, the glow of the day still radiating off of the blacktop, just beginning to recede toward a cool twilight. Looking toward a shout of orange- and pink-swirled clouds in the distance, Stiles dragged the scene into his lungs with some difficulty, ecstatic and nearly drunk at his escape from the stagnant, bleach-scrubbed air of the hospital. The breeze was still warm, ruffling his oil-stiffened hair. Unfortunately, he would be unable to shower for another week. His father had been assigned to help him sponge-bathe until the staples could be removed - an appointment which would soon enough suck him back into the cold white fog in the halls of infirmity.   
For now, though, he was out.

***

There were ebbs and flows in Stiles’ life, as he expected everyone experienced. There were times which flew by in a rush, blurring together in a smear of adrenaline and circumstance. There were times which cemented themselves in his memory for no apparent reason other than the fact that he remembered them. There were times whose mundanity would fade into the background of all the other unremarkable times. But, there were moments, usually when he was alone and far too awake for his liking, when he would become painfully aware of his own existence. The number of moments that had passed with him unaware, all abstract ideas he couldn’t even wrap his head around, sickened him, like he just realized he had missed something that should be precious. But then, as the seconds stretched into eons, he would know how little everything he did or didn’t remember mattered. In a world that so regularly needed saving, why would his affections and acne and assignments hold any weight?  
Maybe it was the interrupted sleep schedule on behalf of medication or the thorough sloshing his brain had endured, but this, his first night back at home, was one of those nights.  
It would be a long time before Stiles understood that the crazy, fucked-up world he lived in made all those things even more precious.


End file.
